Friends from near and far

 I am a lucky girl to get to spend time with my friends.  Since the weather has been so nice, I have had visits from friends near and far.  Sonny is one of my best friends.  We are usually running wild together, but in this picture we are very subdued watching Finding Nemo.

 Mr. Henry and Mrs. Bernis (along with Mr. Stefan and Mrs. Becky, not pictured) came to visit us.  I got to ride on the Chattanooga Duck Tour on the river with all of my friends!

 My littlest friend, Baby Beckett.  I turn into a big sister when I am with him.

It was our friend Cadden's birthday.  Here I am in the Adventure Center acting silly at the party.

Daddy's Day Out

 Daddy has been on the road a lot lately participating in many boring meetings, so we decided to scoop him up for the day and show him some real fun during Mommy's spring break.  We are lucky to be near the TN Aquarium and started of our day with a bird show, and then Mommy's favorite, the river otters!  There is one swimming behind us in this picture.

 Vi gets really up close and personal with the fish.

Vi is not scared of red-bellied piranhas!

 Just "taking a little rest" as Vi says.

 We took a lunch break at Mellow Mushroom and Vi and Daddy had staring contests.

 Vi did much better this visit about putting her hands in the water to touch the fish.  Mommy is a little scared to touch the fish, so it was good that Daddy was around to encourage her more.  The stingrays are very friendly, but we had much more fun playing with the "Dori" fish.  Daddy, as usual, is a regular animal charmer and could make her dance.  Our previous post during Christmas break shows him charming birds in an aviary.  He says that animals can sense his kind soul :)

Daddy the fish charmer

Getting a 360 view of giant crabs!

 I just really liked this picture.  Vi calls this spot her "room."

 We made a stop at Coolidge Park and took a couple of rides on the 100 + years old carousel.  Each "animal" has a plaque that tells who carved it, when, and the animal's name.  She wanted the cat.  His name is Beauregard.  We thought this was a funny coincidence since her Daddy lived in Beauregard, AL during college.  And it's also a town in France :)

 At the fountains

 Riding another animal at the fountains; the building behind Vi is the pavilion where they house the carousel.  I think this is an awesome potential birthday venue, but we will definitely wait until she is tall enough to ride alone so she will feel like a big girl.

Final stop: cupcakes!

We had an awesome family day, perfect in fact.  Days like these make me very thankful for my sweet and loving family.  We have so much fun together.

A real "artiste"

Vi has always shown an interest for coloring, painting, cutting and crafts.  Some of her latest artwork is actually pretty good and interesting (but of course I am her Mommy).  She always have 5 or 6 paintings on her clip at school while the other kids maybe have 2, so I can tell she is enthusiastic about her artwork.

This one is entitled "Vi's Mommy" - It's the VooDoo version of Mommy :)  And the two sticks at the bottom are legs, not whiskers.

Vi says the darndest things...

Here are the latest hilarious Vi-isms....

Mommy is wearing a button down shirt and Vi asks, "Why are you wearing Daddy's shirt?"  See, Dad, you really do have a "uniform."

Vi wakes up from a nightmare and says, "the little girl opened the door and there was a ghost!" before flopping back over and passing out.  Nothing will top the time she woke up in the middle of the night and said, "Mommy, I hear the ice cream truck."  We know what she dreams about!

According to Vi, you have to say "au revoir" to everyone when exiting or leaving.  Some people actually understand what she is saying and crack up.

At Cracker Barrel, Vi asks an elderly lady if her husband is her grandpa and then says, "I have a Grandpa, too, and a Paw."

With love from Vi!

Happy Valentine's day from Vi and her Valentine "pal" Scooby-Doo.  This was one of her Valentine's gifts.

Vi did an excellent job of helping prepare, bake, ice, and decorate the cookies she made for her Valentine's party at school.  They are lemon cookies with lemon icing mmmmmmm (adapted from Ham n' Goody's lemon cookies).

Vi hopes you have a very special Valentine's Day!  XOXO

Best of NOLA 2011

Our first stop in New Orleans was the Aquarium of the Americas.  We wanted to go to the zoo, but it was raining :(  Honestly, this bird exhibit they had was hilarious.  As you can see, I got a kick out of seeing 6 of them land on Anthony!

The most precious photos that I had were of Vi attending her école maternelle, or preschool in French.  She attended a bilingual school during the week, and I took photos but they were somehow deleted from my phone - arghhhhh!

While she was having fun at school, we did some touristy things and lots of eating.  We extremely enjoyed our visit to Oak Alley Plantation.  We got a picture of the two of us on the porch with the oaks; they really are gorgeous. The ones on this side of the house looking out to the river are around 300 years old with a life span of about 600 years.

The mint julep deserved it's own photo.  I think the syrup they use there is the key ingredient.  It was soooo warm that day it was nice to stroll around with a cool drink.  I bought some of the syrup.  They mix with Early Times... haven't had that since college :)

The average French-Acadian female during plantation times was around 4'10."  I would've been considered tall!  Here, I am imagining myself as the matron of the house.  The first owners allowed their sons to ride horses all the way down the alley, through the front doors and then out the back, ruining the marble floors on the bottom level of the house.

She is killing us looking like such a big girl in this picture!  We could even swim outside!  The weather was so nice, and our hotel had a lovely little courtyard pool just the right size for Vi.

Another favorite activity was our horse and carriage ride.  We got to see all of the Christmas decorations and lights, and our driver was kind enough to take a different route so that Vi could enjoy the best of the best.  Check out this house in the quarter.  They own bulldogs, can you tell?

As usual, we had a superb Christmas vacation in New Orleans.  Thanks Aunt Cindy and Uncle Jerry for gifting us our accommodations so that we could enjoy the city so fabulously!  I can't wait until we can go back again.

YOU MUST EAT:

Mr. B's for lunch

El Gato Negro, get the tableside guacamole and the margaritas

Blue Plate Cafe (breakfast)

Jacque Imo's (dinner)

and a daiquiri, to go!

Vi's Christmas 2011 Rewind

Vi left Santa some tasty treats: a slim jim, orange juice, cheese, coconut bonbon, and a lemon cookie

"Santa" gets lovin' from his girls!

Christmas breakfast.  Vi's favorite is homemade pancakes with sprinkles.  She asked Santa for this Baby Rudolph and he delivered.  Aren't they cute together?

Christmas 2011 was one of the best Christmases I can remember.  It was really fun to have a bubbly 3 year old to help sing Christmas carols and decorate.  She was more excited that we were about the holidays.  It was really like having our own Buddy the Elf around the house.  I can't wait until next year!

On Christmas morning, we opened gifts.  One thing that happened (but not pictured) is that Santa left Vi a treasure map in her stocking.  Drawing treasure maps is a daily pastime of Vi's, so of course she followed all of the clues and found her big present, a LeapFrog Leapster game (kinda like a game boy but for toddler learning games).  She really has enjoyed learning letters and numbers with it.

After all of the normal Christmas morning activity, we loaded up the car and drove to Meridian, Mississippi.  Why, you ask?  This was our bump in the road before making it to New Orleans.  We had a lovely Christmas Dinner of Waffle House - barf, but Vi kept us laughing by taking care of "Precious" her dog that Santa gave her.